WITH CARL OF THE HILL 33 



though she took it for a sign that he was beginning 

 to feel old. 



So the summer wore to winter and the next 

 spring came and the seasons followed thereupon, 

 and like a flower grew the child. And it seemed, 

 indeed, as if Carl's dream were coming true. Sunlight 

 was now in her eighth year : straight as an arrow, •^^ 

 graceful as a deer. Quick as were her instincts and 

 wonderful her loveliness, there was nothing pre- 

 cocious, nothing' elfin, about her character or face. 

 The child of nature was she, but in its fairest and 

 breeziest sense. In her the poet's thought seemed 

 realised. 



And beauty born of mnrnmring sound 

 Shall pass into her face. 



For it was as though each element in Nature's 

 hand had given her something of itself: the sun 

 her hair, the heaven her eyes, the stream her 

 laughter, and the birds her voice. But better far 

 than all was the child's sweet disposition and her 

 gentle ways of love. 



It was wonderful to see how the influence of one 

 little child could radiate even through a district so 

 thinly settled-up as that. Yet so it was Carl's hut 



c 



